Salt Lake Telegram | 1950-12-02 | Page 6 | Little-Known Fact

Known Little Fact Large Basilica of St. St Peter Serves Smallest Parish By Adrienne Farrell VATICAN CITY Reuters Reuters Reuters- Few pilgrims visiting Rome realize that the immense basilica of ot St. St Peter serves ser the smallest parish in the world Although the thc church can hold holdup holdup holdup up to people St. St Peters Peter's I parishioners number only 84 Before the treaty of ot 1929 the parish extended into the narrow streets of the surrounding sur sur- lJ J rounding Borghi and the thet t greatest church in Christendom I was also parish church for many I L Romans living HYing in the crowded I old houses that cluster around it But the treaty cut cutoff cutoff cutoff off the newly-created newly Vatican City from the rest of Rome The Church of St. St Anne inside the Vatican walls became the thc parish church for most Vatican citizens St. St Peters Peter's remained isolated a as if on an island separated from its Roman parishioners by bythe bythe bythe the new frontier line Today the members of its parish consist of 16 priests 15 laymen 44 women and 9 chil chil- dren